


Anger Management (or what to do when your best friend becomes a supervillain)

by anonforlackofabettername



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Gen, Jess is so done with everything, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Superheroes, Superpowers, Swearing, and she expresses that via her potty mouth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-05
Updated: 2017-10-05
Packaged: 2019-01-09 07:34:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12271845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anonforlackofabettername/pseuds/anonforlackofabettername
Summary: Jess is having none of Kyle's bullshit. He wants to be a supervillain, fine. She'd rather lay in bed procrastinating writing her thesis. Unfortunately for her she takes her promises seriously. And an old promise from when they were kids means he's her problem now. Well not for long if she has anything to say about it.





	Anger Management (or what to do when your best friend becomes a supervillain)

**Author's Note:**

> This was a inspired by a prompt I found during finals week last semester that I couldn't get out of my head until I had to write it. The prompt was from caffeinewitchcraft.tumblr.com and is as follows:
>
>> Superhero universe: Your best friend left your small town to become a hero in the Big City. But, after three years, you turn on the news and see that they’ve become a super villain. So now you gotta go take them out because of this blood pack you guys made when you were eight.
> 
> Its a slice of something that probably should have been a bigger piece had I had time back then to write more than a short thing. Still I'm pretty proud of how it came out. Special thanks to astranyx and thevoidwatches on tumblr for beta-ing this for me. You guys are serious the best friends a girl could ask for. 

“I’m gonna kill him! I’m going to fucking kill him this time, _I swear to god_. I can’t wait to wring his scrawny neck. I can’t believe he’s making me do this. When I catch him, he’s gonna _fucking_ regret it!” Jess muttered angrily as she stomped down her fifth dank alley of the afternoon, the sound of her footsteps echoing in the small space. She reached the end of the alley and immediately turned into the next one, following the directions on her phone to where Kyle- _sorry ‘Illusion Master’_ \- was supposed to be. _What a dumb name,_ she thought to herself as she turned down yet another alleyway, _and seriously, what is it with big cities and alleyways anyway_? The new one was filled with puddles, and her boots made satisfying splashes as she stalked through them. In front of her the alleyway widened as she turned onto the main road again.

When she was about a block down the new road, she started to hear shouting and sounds of fighting in the distance, which meant that she was probably getting close. Hopefully the Luck villain she’d shook down earlier for information had been telling the truth. She hadn’t learned his codename, and didn’t really care to, but his powers affecting luck and probability should be enough get her to Kyle. And if not, then it’s not like she’d have trouble tracking him down again. He could have all the luck in the world and he _still_ wouldn’t be able to avoid her if she was really trying.

As she got closer to the end of the street, the sounds of fighting became clearer. In front of her, where the road curved, there was a small crowd outside of what might have been a museum. It looked like the police were keeping people back and away from the fighting, but she needed a closer look to say for sure. Most of the fight seemed to be happening at ground level so she couldn’t see much through the crowd except for the occasional unhelpful flashes. Unfortunately, she hadn’t paid attention to the Who’s Who of the superpowered world since high school, and she barely recognized any of the combatants. It was kind of annoying, but at least she hadn’t had to punch her way through a childhood hero in her quest to kick Kyle’s ass for being a monumental idiot.

She paused about half a block away from the crowd to shove her phone in her jeans and make sure her keys and wallet were still secure inside her leather jacket. Next she took the hairband from around her wrist and pulled her long brown hair up into a ponytail before pulling out the mask she’d bought from the party store near her apartment and tying it on her face. She’d never really planned on being a superhero, except for a few idle fantasies when she was a kid, but like hell was she going to walk into the middle of a super-fight bare-faced. That was a sure fire way to get outed, and she wanted to be able to go back to her life after the weekend was over. She only had three months left before she was done with her degree, and she wanted to graduate without everyone knowing about her powers, or the fact that her childhood best friend had decided to become a super villain.

Mask firmly in place, she stalked through the crowd and up to the barrier. She’d never been the most intimidating person, being barely 5’4”, so getting to the front required a lot of pushing and shoving. Once there, a police officer tried to stop her from crossing the barrier, but she’d always been stronger than the average person, and she simply bodily moved him out of her way. Fortunately, his partner noticed her mask and stopped him from retaliating, likely assuming she was a new super who was late to the fight. Well he was sort of right.

Within the police perimeter, a full on super-fight was in full swing. The Lightning hero she had run into earlier was facing off against some villain who had what she thought were forcefields. Another hero with shadow powers seemed to be trying to take down a pair of twins wielding… something. Jess wasn’t sure what their weapons were, but she was sure she could find out with a quick google search if she really cared, which she didn’t.

There were a couple other heroes around, too. Madame Mind, an old school telepath, and the one Kyle had been fighting in the news broadcast that prompted her trip to the city, was standing a couple feet from her, on the museum’s steps, coordinating the heroes’ efforts. And… holy shit, that was Entity and Tech Master fighting a couple feet away from her. Both of them were time-honored enemies and have been around for ages. And there, directly in the middle of the circle of onlookers, too busy laughing maniacally to float more than a foot off the ground while the rest of the heroes were caught up in fighting what looked like thin air to her, but was probably his illusions, was Kyle. _Dick._

It took her only a moment to take everything in- she said a quick thanks to her mom for the self defense lessons that she’d been forced into when she was younger- before she strode angrily through the illusion-on-person melee to land a solid hit right to Kyle’s gut. He doubled over on her fist and fell out of the air. Behind her, his illusions would be flickering out of existence due to both the break in his concentration and her powers fucking with his-not that she could see them anyway. She grabbed his collar and dragged him up so that he was hanging from her fist not two inches from her face and loudly let loose all the anger she’d been badly holding in.

“What the everloving fuck do you think you’re doing, _you asshole?_ It’s been _three fucking years_ since I last saw you, two since you bothered to actually take time out of your busy day and message me, and the first hint I have that you’ve crawled out from whatever rock you’ve been hiding under is the _fucking evening news?! What the hell?_ No call, no text, _no nothing_ -just a fucking news report on the latest super incident! You’re lucky I saw the clip before your mom did. After all the covering I’ve been doing for you so she didn’t worry when you never came home during the summer, I can’t even begin to imagine what she’s gonna do to both of us when she finds out!”

He just dangled there and took it, gasping weakly and trying to get his breath back after she knocked the wind out of him. At the mention of his mom however, his head snapped up and he stammered out a quick “W-w-what? Je-” before she cut him off with a rough shake of the hand that still held him, and a quickly bitten out “ _No names_ asshole. I have a life I want to get back to after I’m done dealing with your sorry ass.”

“Sorry. _Immunity_ then,” he spat out angrily finally recognizing his assailant. He used the superhero name she’d picked out when she was ten, when she had first realized her powers weren’t just that she was stronger than any ten year old girl had the right to be. He got his feet under him and shook off her hand on his collar, standing up to glare down at her. Kyle wasn’t that tall, but he still had a couple inches on her. Unfortunately for him, Jess had been looking up at him all her life. It wasn’t going start being menacing now. _“What the hell are you doing here?”_

“Kicking your sorry ass and dragging you home, what does it look like?” She said getting in his face again, her volume going back to a normal level. The quicker she got done with this confrontation the quicker she could get home. She had a paper to finish and class on Monday. She did not have the time to deal with this.

“Again, why the hell would you want to do that? You hate supers, now you’re gonna become one just to take me down?”

“Your fault, you dick. Or don’t you remember the blood pact when we were eight?” She hissed out. She could see his eyes widen behind his mask as he remembered. “As much as I’d rather be watching Netflix in my bed right now, we swore and you know how seriously I take oaths. Like hell am I gonna break an oath just because you decided you wanted to wear shitty spandex and steal for a living. _Not. Happening.”_

Jess paused at the end of her rant to take a moment to get her breathing under control, and only then realized that it was suspiciously quiet for the middle of a super-fight. She took a step back, dropping her fist from where it had unconsciously gripped the front of Kyle’s costume while she had been yelling at him and looked around. Everyone was staring at them. Some of the villains had retreated to a little cluster of cars parked near the far side of the museum plaza, while the heroes had arrayed themselves in a loose line near the base of the steps behind her. Entity had Tech Master on the ground, possibly unconscious, while one of the twins from earlier was retreating back towards forcefield girl, dragging the other twin with them. The heroes all looked a little flabbergasted, like they weren’t sure what they should be doing. In the distance Jess could see a news van pull up, late as always. _Great,_ she thought. _Just what we need. More people._

She whirled back to Kyle and grabbed him by the arm before he could attempt to fly away. “Look what you’ve done now,” she said. “We’re causing a scene.”

“I don’t know what ‘we’ you’re talking about. This is all on you. I was in the middle of a fairly standard fight before you showed up,” he responded raising his free hand in the air in a gesture of supposed innocence.

“Yeah right,” she returned. “You’re the entire reason that I’m here! Now come on, I have shit to do and the sooner I drag you home, the sooner I can get it done.”

_“I’m afraid we can’t let you do that,”_ she heard a lilting voice from behind her say. _“Illusion Master has to go to jail to pay for his crimes.”_ She turned once again, feeling like some sort of spinning top, and looked to see who spoke. It was Madame Mind, speaking up from the back of the group of heroes. She doesn’t speak often from what Jess remembered, but it wasn’t as though she could use her telepathy in this situation. _“Immunity, was it? Why don’t you hand him over. Then you can come with us, and we can see about getting you set up within the city.”_

Jess snorted. Like hell did she want to be a hero. “Thanks but no thanks,” she said.“ I’m only here for this idiot, and then I never want to step foot in this goddamn city again. _Fucking supers,_ ” she muttered.

_“We can’t let you take him,”_ Madame Mind tried again, but before she could get going she was interrupted by Jess throwing out, “And who’s gonna stop me? You?”

Jess was about to comment on how Madame Mind’s powers wouldn’t work on her but was interrupted in turn by a deep, otherworldly voice saying from startlingly close by, **“Me.”** She flinched, a full body movement that ended with her instinctively moving away from the voice and dragging Kyle with her from the hand she still had on his arm.

_“Jesus fuck!”_ she spat out reflexively. “Warn a girl next time you do that!”

**“Release him and come with us. If you try to leave with him, I’m afraid I’ll have to stop you.”** Entity said in response.

Jess should have be afraid. She should’ve be quaking in her steel-toed boots. Entity was the real deal. He was powerful as hell and had been around for practically forever. You didn’t get more super than him. But she wasn’t afraid. She knew his powers, practically everyone did. And she hadn’t picked Immunity when she was little just because it sounded cool. Whatever he could throw at her she could take.

“Yeah, no. I’m leaving now.” She said, turning her back on the heroes for what she hoped was the final time and started dragging Kyle to the edge of the plaza with the fewest onlookers. That side happen to be the same area where Kyle’s villain buddies had retreated to as the fighting ground to a halt. She could see Forcefield putting up a shield to stop her, as if that would even slow her down. Behind her, she heard a short yelp from Kyle a split second before he broke her hold on his arm and scurried in front of her. And it was not a moment too soon, as a second later a blast from Entity hit her square in the back. Most people would have been on the ground unconscious after a hit from him. She would have been, had the blast actually done anything more than dissipate on contact. Her powers _rocked_.

That was her cue though to get the fuck out of there. In the time it took the heroes to realize what had happened or rather, what hadn’t, Jess had again grabbed Kyle by the back of his costume and hightailed it to the edge of the plaza. She looked behind her one last time to where the heroes were looking confused at her seemingly unharmed form before she flipped everyone off and headed out. The last thing she heard as she left was Tech Master getting back up and the rest of the villains starting to make a break for it. She was certain that they'd be busy enough that none of the heroes would have a chance to come after them before she had dragged Kyle out of the city once and for all.

**Author's Note:**

> Jess would make such a good hero. Instead she's just like fuck everything. One of these days I might write a sequel or prequel to this. Originally I was gonna write Jess heading into the city and breaking up a fight between some villain with luck-based powers and the hero with lightning-powers but that didn't end up happening. Instead it just gets referenced like twice. If nothing else I kind of want to revisit this verse even if its with a different character. This is only the broad strokes but I kind of like what little worldbuilding I was able to do. Thanks for reading. I'm on tumblr at anonforlackofabettername.tumblr.com if you wanna come chat.


End file.
